The infrared photo at left shows radiant heat loss (yellow and red shading) in a typical residential window and door. It also reveals that the most grievous heat loss (purple, violet, almost black shading) takes place around the trim and edges of the opening. This is air infiltration, and it is your deadly enemy in keeping your house warm and dry and free of mold.
We’ve posted before on the hazards of air infiltration and moisture, and we’ve urged you all to arm yourselves with caulk, foam in cans, and sticky weatherstripping to fight the crannies that permit heat to escape and air to come in while you’re trying to heat or cool your house. Only in temperate spring and fall weather here in New England do we blithely throw open our windows and share the environment indoors and outdoors. In either high summer or deepest winter the potential for unpleasant temperatures and moisture accumulations indoors and makes climate control increasingly not just a luxury.
Enter the capitalist economy. Don’t fuss about with all that caulk and foam, say the strident voices on the radio and television; we can change your house’s energy performance in a jiffy with 1. new energy-efficient vinyl replacement windows, 2. new energy-efficient vinyl storm doors front and rear, 3. safe, energy-efficient blown-in insulation in attic and walls, no damage to your interior, 4. new, safe, “permanent” energy-efficient vinyl siding with optional foam insulation backing to save you lots of energy and money. And they take credit cards, and they have financial experts standing by to mortgage your house for the full amount.
No sudden moves, now. Will replacement windows perform startingly better than the wooden sash windows or vinyl double-hung you have now? Not if you reduce or eliminate air leakage ( infiltration) through and around your old windows. Then your old windows will perform nearly as well as any window on the market, give or take 15%. Surprised? Same story with the blown-in insulation and the vinyl siding. The best deal of the lot is the vinyl storm windows and doors. They reduce infiltration almost completely through your entry doors. The rest of the “home improvements” won’t pay for themselves any time soon.
The article linked here is from Journal of Light Construction on the subject of replacement windows and their rate of payback based on improved energy performance. The math doesn’t work. It takes a LONG time to payback the investment on new windows, doors, siding, and blown-in insulation. What takes a SHORT time to pay back? Anything that tightens your house, closes cracks, tightens doors and windows, and reduces air infiltration in and out. That’s the magic of home energy. Air. Stop it going in and out, you stop energy from being stolen from your house and your budget.
The boring conclusion is: nothing makes as big a difference in your house as caulk, foam and weatherstripping. Big ticket stuff like windows and viny siding works, eventually. But caulk and foam and gummy weatherstrip work today. If you hire a remodeler, handyman or do it yourself, it still works if you do it right. And it’s not too hard. Don’t hock the ranch before you’ve done the chores, ok?
In the photo at left, a jet engine is being used to burn natural gas, and the rotational energy is not being used to transport sales managers to St. Louis. The energy is being used to turn generators which will power the Mashantucket Tribal Nation’s casino operation in Connecticut. The natural gas, purchased from the local utility at bulk rates, is less expensive as a generating source than power transported via the local grid from the Millstone Nuclear Power Station in nearby Waterford. Natural gas, the price of which was expensive while crude oil prices were spiking a year ago, is cheap now, and if it remains cheap, the project is expected to “pay for itself in three years,” says Charlene Jones of the Mashantucket Tribe. Northeast Utilities, the parent company that sells both the electrical power and the natural gas, shrugs and says, ” Co-generation’s better for the environment and it’s better for everything else.” Presumably “everything else” refers to Northeast’s bottom line. The aging grid here in Southeastern CT is stretched to support large consumers like the tribal casinos, and selling the gas for co-generation is profitable for Northeast while unburdening its electrical distribution network, which is in need of expensive repairs and upgrades.
The carbon footprint of Millstone Nuclear Power Plant is a theoretical zero, or near-zero. Neutrons don’t pollute, in the classic sense of emitting carbon dioxide. As long as they don’t escape, they do nothing. Someday the spent fuel will become a major economic and political migraine, but for now, Millstone is as green as a witch’s bum.
The burning of natural gas, billed as the “cleanest of fossil fuels,” emits 117,000 lb. of CO2 per billion BTU generated. Oil in its various forms emits 164,000 lb. of CO2. Coal, the pigpen of fossil energy, emits 208,000 lb. per billion. Photovoltaic panels emit nearly zero, except in their manufacture, which amortizes to almost bupkus over their life span. Millstone emits quite a bit of heat, but almost no carbon dioxide, except for the staff, who won’t quit breathing, even just for the one day of the test. So “better for the environment” is a statement that can be argued: better than what?
The Jemez Pueblo Indian tribe of southern New Mexico are in the beginning stages of a 22 million dollar project which will generate 4 megawatts of electricity, most of it for sale to the surrounding communities at favorable rates, netting the tribe much needed cash. The Jemez Pueblo tribe was denied a casino permit by the BIA bureaucrats on the basis that no one will drive to their reservation to gamble. Been to Foxwoods lately? It’s isolated; possibly less so than Jemez. But that deal is done, and the Jemez Pueblos are making the best of their options by putting panels on every roof in the tribal community, as well as ground-mounted arrays on open land belonging to the tribe. With an expected 25 year profitability goal, the tribe will show positive cash flow from the start due to favorable financing through the government. Carbon footprint? Near zero. And other tribes, notably the Campo Kumeyaay near San Diego, are enjoying their proximity to eager consumers to install wind and solar co-generation facilities that will unburden the local utility while providing a revenue stream for the tribe— one that won’t be strangled by the next recession and doesn’t involve the questionable economics of gambling, a transfer of funds from one pocket to another that manufactures nothing but the occasional big winner.
So, two tribes, one energy crisis, two solutions, and two very different worldviews. The Jemez Pueblos will see modest income and reap big positive community response from their eco-friendly project. The Mashantucket Pequots, in choosing the “cleanest of fossil fuels,” have done a smart business deal that benefits their bottom line, and the utility’s bottom line, but contributes nothing to the surrounding communities except carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and slot machines. Their roof surfaces, likely much larger than those available to the Jemez Pueblos, remain untroubled by photovoltaic panels. Although Connecticut has generous tax and rebate programs for commercial PV installations, the bang is in huge flames and high-speed turbines. The Mashantucket Pequots are my neighbors. Thanks, guys. I hope you make a smarter choice next time.
The trio at left are wearing Vulcan
Snuggies, intergalactic precursors of the recent lounging garment fad. Apparently on Vulcan they keep their drafty old cavern dwellings cool to save energy. I take a neutral position on Snuggies, except that they do qualify as comfortable indoor apparel to keep a body warm in a cold room. In dormitories they compensate for stingy thermostat settings regulated by central computers.
But at your house, with four walls and your heating system between you and the howling wind, the math of heat loss makes a compelling argument for warm clothes and lower thermostat settings. If your walls are sealed and insulated to an average of
R10 including windows and doors, and if your outside wall exposure totals about 3000 square feet including ceiling, the formula in the wiki link yields a heat loss of 18,000 btu per hour at ten degrees outdoor temperature and 70 degrees inside. Decrease that to 60 degrees inside temperature and the heat loss goes to 15,000 btu per hour. And, at 50 degrees inside, it drops to 12,000, a 33% decrease in energy loss. And Snuggies only cost 20 dollars US or so. And they make them for your dog.
You don’t have to work a miracle on your roof with PV panels, or smuggle some neutrons out of the Millstone power plant on your way home, or buy a miracle Shaker heater. You can work the basic math of heat loss with your thermostat settings. But you’re going to need some warm, comfortable clothes to stay happy and well. It doesn’t have to be a Snuggie, it can be a robe, vest, jacket or sweater. Or just a warm companion. That’s the best I know for empowering us little folks against the financial bind of winter in New England.
The Huffington Post uses the photo at left to illustrate the President’s speech at the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change. The President’s tone is severe, disappointed, almost grim. Hit the link to see the text of his remarks. His disappointment centers around the many wrenches being thrown into the process of dealing with climate change by both undeveloped and developing countries.
China, the world’s most egregious polluter by a comfortable margin (with the USA running a clean second), is balking at the proposed cap-and-trade and sin tax measures that would both penalize major polluters, like China, and provide carbon credits for more slowly developing countries (read most of Africa) to use or possibly to sell to polluting nations to earn badly needed cash for their own programs. Even the African nations, and others in similar circumstances, are demanding the right to “grow dirty” for as long as they want, citing the poor record of the US, China and other industrial nations over the last two centuries as polluters.
Unwilling to accept a progressive cap-and-trade system like the one under consideration, the poorest nations at the conference are demanding either huge monetary concessions in return for their cooperation with carbon emissions limitations, or an exemption that will allow them to pursue economic growth at an advantage while the larger countries accept limited carbon emissions standards.
With these mulish denials ringing in his ears, Obama warned us that we can either act now, and decisively, or return to the table to have “these same stale conversations.” That must have stung the Chinese and Africans…..
So what can you do at home to persuade the Africans and Chinese to think globally and accept the limitations of “low carbon growth?” Not much directly, sad to say. But if Americans were to show a national will to conserve, take charge of our own carbon footprints (this link is to an earlier post on that topic), and show a preference for lower-impact houses and cars, the message would not be wasted on a world which has looked to us for almost two centuries as trendsetters and innovators. It looks bad for us to be stuck in our denial of climate change and the inevitable scarcity of energy. Enlightened, attentive leadership is what we demanded when we elected Barack Obama. Enlightened leadership is what the world expects of us, and they have shown their willingness to follow suit. They want our blue jeans, they want our sneakers, they want our cell phones, and they’ll want our energy policies when we have some worth sharing.
This brief post will keep us close to home. I noted our new solar hot water system a few weeks ago, stressing our modest expectations for winter performance. I have to say I’m pleasantly surprised.
Today, December 6, the temperature in our town topped out in the 30s, we got three inches (up on this high hill, we get more) of wet, icy snow last night, and the winds were gusting to 15 miles or so as the day wore on. I checked the panel temp this morning after hearing the snow and ice avalanche off the collectors at 9 AM or so. 100 degrees on the return fluid thermometer.
Cutting to the jelly, I just ran hot water at 105 from my kitchen tap. One day of performance, 80 gallons of shower-ready water. Two 4×7 Stiebel Eltron flat plate panels (evacuated tubes are nice, but not necessary) two 40 gallon stainless holding tanks with heat exchanger coils for the solar fluid. One Caleffi (pricey, but very flexible) solar differential pump control. Very short connecting pipe (under ten feet total) between the panels and the tanks, located on my roof and in my attic, respectively.
As we near the solstice, and as temperatures drop into the teens and oughts, performance will certainly drop. But it won’t drop to zero. We’ll get pre-warmed water for the boiler to finish off on every sunny day from now until March equinox. I hope, after that, we’ll be getting near total solar hot water for some months.
So— a few thousand dollars (I, a seasoned solar contractor, did the installation myself) in equipment, a prime roof spot oriented within 15 degrees of south, a relatively un-obstructed morning horizon (the afternoon sun is hampered by some tall trees), a solar day extending from 9 AM to about 3 PM, and this is what we’re getting for an energy harvest. DEP figures concerning hot water as a proportion of total household energy are being revised upward, to a possible 25%. If that’s so, and I believe it in our case, I’ll look for a 25% drop in our fuel oil usage this winter. And, at nearly 60, I expect to bequeath this system to a future owner someday, still running, still harvesting that blessed free energy from God’s own fusion bomb, the sun.
There are three listings in the Southeastern Connecticut Yellow Pages under “Solar Contractors.” There are 876 approved applications to date for rebates under the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund program, for a total connected capacity of 4 megawatts. That will power 8000 small houses during peak daylight hours, if it all gets used efficiently. For a few hours on the sunniest days. There is one photovoltaic installation within easy driving distance of my home in North Stonington. The Connecticut Clean Energy Rebate program is shut down until July of 2010 for “financial review.”
Solar is not setting the world on fire here in Connecticut, is the point. The approved leasing program that allows homeowners to join the energy revolution does not convey the tax credits and rebates available to those buying their equipment. You just get to sell the power back to the grid, defraying your power bill by a fraction, depending upon your usage. Oil is cheap, to those who have any money at all, and the outcry for alternative energy sources is down to a murmur, mostly heard from the same folks who have been calling for change since Jimmy Carter funded the first rebate program for solar in the 70s.
If solar power, both for hot water and electricity, is to catch on in the mind of the public, we need a consciousness-raising experience, preferably several.
So how about small solar that you can give Dad as a Christmas gift, a kit of panels, inverter and batteries that he can assemble in the garage or basement, set out in the back yard, and start calculating the incoming watts from the sun? You can’t hook these small kits up to the grid, for many reasons, but you can run a light or two, power a tool, charge the battery on the car, operate landscape lighting, or operate a decorative fountain pump. Use your creative side here.
These links to various vendors who package and ship the equipment, with many disclaimers, right to your door. Target has kits on the shelf. One of the vendors linked above will sell you a kit to power the whole house, even go on the grid if all your permits are lined up. The amounts of power are tiny, ranging from 10 to 75 watts per hour, but the principle is real, and the operation is only a scaled-down version of huge systems sitting on commercial and residential roofs where public conscioiusness has been raised already.
Perhaps we ony need to toy with these concepts for a few years before we’re ready to accept the value of photovoltaics as significant contributors to Connecticut’s energy picture. Perhaps a science project or two will get us into the game, or at least thinking in the right direction. Read the instructions, be very careful, and let me know how it turns out…..
I blew this diagram up so you can make out the details; it’s from a Williams College site describing a system they put in a graduate dorm. The essentials are this: the panels receive cool water from tank dedicated to solar, warm it up in the passage through the panel, return it to a heat exchanger in the solar tank that warms the domestic water. When hot water is demanded, the solar “pre-heated” water passes into a tank warmed by a boiler which increases its temperature to a setpoint for use in the building.
It’s called pre-heating, and that’s the little point I want to make in this post. When you aim a low-temperature all-weather solar setup at a low temperature need, it performs beautifully. Asking a solar hot water system to finish your water off to 125 F or more is asking too much. Only during sunny summer weather will the system carry that burden.
In one pass through two panels on a sunny winter’s day, you might raise the fluid temperature by only three degrees F. You might run that system all day until sundown and have warmed an 80 gallon tank only to 85 degrees (from 45 to 50 degrees incoming temp, depending upon whether you have city supply or well water). But 40 degrees rise for 80 gallons comes to almost 13 thousand btu that you didn’t have to pay for. And it means your finishing, or backup source will run that much less to get the water hot enough to use. On a sunny day you might raise the same tank of water all the way to terminal temperature (app. 130 degrees). That’s 26,000 btu from the sun. You might want to run your finishing source a little, but it only has to raise the temp a few degrees. Energy is being saved on a grander scale by allowing the solar panels to operate at a lower temperature, where the sun and the heat exchanger are able to deliver energy more efficiently.
I have clients with solar systems sharing a tank with electric finishing elements. They only get solar benefit when the panels are as hot as the terminal temperature setting of the domestic water. There just aren’t that many days in CT when the panels get hot enough to finish off the water in one pass.
And the cost? Fewer panels and smaller tanks do more work at lower temps. A tank only has to be a about as large as your daily water demand to deliver its full potential as a preheater. It needs to be much larger to store heated water against cloudy days and night time losses. So while you’re waiting for the cost of photovoltaics to come down, and wondering what you can do to join the green movement, solar hot water in a pre-heating configuration is the most cost effective entry level investment. Most systems can be installed for less than ten thousand dollars US, and they attach to your hot water piping just ahead of whatever your water has been heated by in the past: electric tank, boiler coil, external heat exchanger or woodstove. With photovoltaic systems starting at about 30,000 d0llars, and paying back rather slowly, this solar hot water option is appealing at several levels. You can get free energy from the sun, with not much red tape, and get the federal and state tax credits that reduce the cost of the system by as much as 50% depending upon your location and the system cost. That’s a game we normal people can think about jumping into, and nothing feels as good as a nearly free shower.
Guess how many of the bulbs in the photo are energy-efficient compact fluorescents? Yes, of course it’s a trick… ok, all of them, smartypants. And that’s the point of this post: to retract my longstanding opposition to compact fluorescent bulbs, and to get you to take a fresh look at a new generation of energy-efficient lighting that saves money while still doing the job well.
About fifteen years ago compact fluorescent lights appeared on my contractor’s radar; clients were asking about them, the public utility was hawking them in discount programs, and I was the stodgy old guy telling everyone to wait, the product wasn’t really up to the challenge, and removing the fixtures people insisted on buying in a rosy glow of greenness. The dim, harsh, flickering, watery, slow-to-light fluorescents that were supposed to change the world and lower our power bills have been a terrible disappointment, as this George Will essay sarcastically details.
And I, monsieur energy contractor, installing the latest in efficient heating and cooling equipment, and the best in automated home lighting systems that turn off when not needed to save money, was the naysayer who steered everyone away from the latest trends in alternative lighting.
Until now. it’s time to retract, and I’m doing it publicly. This link is to a catalog site showing many styles and brilliances of fluorescent and LED lighting, and while there are still caveats restraining the homeowner from believing every claim that GE and Phillips make for their new bulbs, I’m changing my stance and coming out for compact fluorescent retrofit bulbs, the ones that can be screwed into an old-style socket to replace an incandescent bulb.
The quality of the light is still “variable.” If you choose the “daylight” or “soft white” color options at the home store, you’ll probably be satisfied with the color and warmth of the light, even if it’s a bit whiter than your old incandescent bulbs.
The intensity is appropriate to the fixture. Compact fluorescents are now prominently labeled for their “lumen” output, a more telling measure than the old “watts” per bulb number. Buy a bulb equal to the lumen output of your old bulb, whatever the wattage, and you’ll get enough light. Notice, while you’re doing that, that your new fluorescent retrofit bulb costs as much as ten times what you’ve been paying for incandescent light bulbs, and is rated to last as much as twenty times as long; and this time they’re probably telling the truth. Older fluorescent retrofits were shorter-lived and grew dimmer as they aged.
Are all compact fluorescent bulbs created equal? No, sorry. Beware of those not costing significantly more than incandescents, and stick to brands like Phillips and GE rather than those packages which clearly indicate their foreign manufacture and sport suspiciously lower prices. The technology you’re paying for is not cheap, and you’ll be disappointed with the cheapest fluorescent retrofits. Check this Popular Mechanics link to a shootout test. Be told, as Granny used to say.
Environmental concerns? They’re real. Compact fluorescents contain a small dose of mercury, which poses no threat unless the bulb is broken. Incandescents are also not safe when broken, so all the same warnings apply. When the dog knocks over the lamp, shoo the kids out of the room and use the vacuum; carefully. Here’s an Energy Star data sheet to help you.
And how do the numbers work out? They work. A compact fluorescent using twelve watts of power competes with an incandescent 60 watt bulb for performance, lasts many times as long, and costs five or six dollars rather than 5o cents. That’s twenty five percent of the power, with a service life that works out as a bargain even ignoring the energy savings.
We’ve blogged before about LED bulbs, and expressed our reservations. We still harbor those reservations. Maybe we’ll visit that topic soon.. Until then, you can go to the big box store, or a good supermarket, and buy the compact fluorescents with confidence. Use them in lights you leave on a lot, not your basement or your closets. Then they’ll do you some real good. And I’m replacing the incandescents at my house, too. We walk what we talk……
If the electric meter in the photo were spinning backward, it would mean that the home it serves is using photovoltaic panels to push power back into the grid. In Connecticut, not the least progressive state in the union concerning renewable energy, the power is resold to the utility at retail, or exactly the cost homeowners are paying for their power. A corollary of the “Net Metering” system is that Connecticut Light and Power makes nothing on those watts contributed by photovoltaic-equipped homeowners: retail in, retail out. If there were enough of those homes hooked to the grid, the utility would become essentially a grid-maintenance corporation and the turbines at Millstone Nucular Power Plant would be idle– except maybe at night, when demand is low and the solar panels of Connecticut are running on moonlight. Small danger of that scenario, you say? You’re probably right. But like Dylan’s 115th Dream, it’s a nice one to have now and then.
If that meter were located in California, things would be a little different. The power flowing out through it from the residential photovoltaic array would be metered at an increased rate, higher than that charged for incoming power. The owner of the panels would be making a profit over and above the exchange of watts. And the obvious incentive to upsize the system and supply extra watts to the grid at that “Tariff-enhanced” rate is clear to anyone. Photovoltaic installation companies in California will now find it easier to “upsell” larger systems to homeowners, systems that will cost tens of thousands of dollars more than the basic entry level equipment, and those homeowners who commit those extra sums of money to renewable energy will be rewarded by faster payback on their investments, and real profits after their installation costs have been recouped.
This US Dept of Energy link explains the new tariff, applicable both to residential and commercial renewable installations up to 1.5 megawatts (a typical residential installation in CT is about 3 thousand watts) at differing tariff rates, making it attractive to invest sums starting around $40k and rising to staggering sums (for me, anyway) for home solar installations. Solar “thermal”, or hot water and heating, installations are already rewarded by California’s wonderful sunny climate, enabling folks like us to enjoy nearly free hot water and heating year-round.
The Bad News? Here in Connecticut we do have net metering, as we said. But the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, which administers and disburses the energy rebates that subsidize solar installations in the state, is currently “under financial review,” code for “not approving new rebates.” I am advised by a CCEF representative that the next disbursements are projected for July of 2010, and that rebates for commercial solar installations have been temporarily suspended. Why? The funds are developed from surcharges and contributions on consumers’ power bills, and CL&P has been short of funds lately since Attorney General Richard Blumenthal denied their request for a rate hike. So it appears that CL&P is economizing their way through this tough period by shorting, among other things, the Clean Energy Rebate program. With the rebates working, a photovoltaic system still costs quite a bit ($30,000 and up), but with no rebates the cost of the systems almost doubles.
Decreasing equipment costs are helping contractors to bring the price of system installations down in the last year, but those gains still don’t put renewable energy within the reach of folks with modest incomes and modest borrowable equity in their homes. And the tally of renewable solar systems installed under the rebate program since june of 2009 totals just under 4 megawatts. Four megawatts is enough to power my house for about a year.
So— we progress, but slowly. And we progress with much talk and belated action. Nothing wrong with talk, but it’s disappointing when we see the tiny advances we make over time. All in all, we lack what is called the “political will,” or the consent of the people, in other words, to move ahead on these issues.
On rare occasions we get a little global and a bit political in this home-focused energy blog. The photo at left shows, in minuscule scale at bottom, a house in Mongolia adorned with various solar devices: photovoltaics, solar hot water, passive window orientation, like that. It is part of a new thrust in Chinese policy which swerves sharply away from the ”let them eat soot” approach previously taken in China’s dizzying progress through the swiftest and most aggressive industrial and technological revolution the planet has yet seen. In one respect only does China fail to eclipse the industrial revolutions of, say, Britain and the US: creative innovation, and that missing ingredient has been willingly supplied by a West eager to trade its technological treasure for the privilege of having our toasters made for us cheaply and in astonishing quantity.
China has become a smokestack economy over the last 40 years, replacing farms with factories while maintaining an adequate agricultural sector and keeping everyone fed. The air, water and land in China have suffered, along with the health of the Chinese people, in predictable ways as the industrial economy has grown by leaps and bounds. Chinese air and water quality have become a global joke, something to point to when defending some environmental foolishness on the part of a nation which should know better. But,,,, but,,,, we’re not as bad as the Chinese, they sputter. And one significant argument against an aggressive response to global climate change has been, why do our part, when the Chinese are the biggest polluters and they have no intention of changing?
As it turns out, China, with its now-customary swiftness, is directing its attention to energy policy and global climate change. This link is to a United Nations site which records that China will meet a goal of 20% reduction in energy intensity by the end of 2010. Are the Chinese, not to put too fine a point on it, just blowing smoke at us? It wouldn’t be the first time. But independent observers confirm that at least part of this claim is true: that China is moving toward a national energy awareness, if not independence. China is the single largest consumer of energy on the planet, and the largest importer of oil. It has its own reserves of coal and some natural gas, which it supplements with purchased gas from Russia. Small surprise: China exports coal to America, and it imports coal for special industrial use (steel production). And 70% of China’s power is generated by coal-burning plants.
To come to the point: China is now the single largest manufacturer of solar panels. The largest solar farms and panel arrays in the world are planned for Chinese locations over the next few years. The solar power production of Europe and Scandinavia, which put the U.S. to shame, are being dwarfed by Chinese installations now in operation. We will soon be unable to point to China as the dragging foot in the war on global climate change and the struggle for renewable energy dominance. By the next Presidential election the U.S. will be embarrassingly behind most of the developed nations in energy independence and renewables production.
Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist, writes in a recent column that “China has the most aggressive renewable energy deployment in the world.” He writes elsewhere that American reluctance to consider measures like a hefty gas tax, research on clean nuclear energy, and significant subsidies for renewable energy production have already caused us to lag behind Europe and Scandinavia. Soon, he says, we will be lagging behind Asia, and after that? Will Latin America also eclipse us as we move into the “Energy Century?” What will it take?
Leadership in this most miraculous of nations (that’s us, by the way— America the beautiful, in which I have implicit faith) comes from both the top and the bottom rungs of the power ladder. We respond to grassroots leadership (that was the 60s, you unbelievers, the last great grassroots movement in America) as well as to great political leadership (that would be the Clintons, pointing the way to broad-based national health care in the 90s), and even when that leadership leaves the stage, the ideas remain to sprout and grow. We are now reaping a harvest of change from Hillary’s health care efforts in the 90s, and we stop at Whole Foods on the way home thanks to a little fad begun in the 60s by some fanatics who had read too much Rachel Carson. We will be dragged into sanity in the near future by leaders like Al Gore and others who are now being shouted down by an oil-subsidized opposition, and America will become an energy leader again. I await the day. Meantime, I’ll keep blogging, installing tight windows, nailing solar panels onto my house, and trying to reduce my energy footprint. Next time we’ll get back on task with home topics.
